


We Could Tear the World Down

by orphan_account



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Sherlock (TV), Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Thor (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Star Trek Fusion, But Approves of Holmes Anyways, Crossovers & Fandom Fusions, Implied Relationships, Life Debt, Loki Bashes Sentiment, M/M, Promises, Repayment, Set during Into Darkness, Subjugation, servitude, vengeance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-11
Updated: 2014-11-11
Packaged: 2018-02-24 19:16:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,275
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2593187
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There was once a mortal who saved a fallen Loki from the searching eyes of Thor and the angry Sif and Warriors Three. In repayment, Loki promised to save him three times in return. </p><p>The first was part of a master ruse on the pavement in front of a hospital.</p><p>The second was in a dying man's last moments in a Serbian prison.</p><p>So when his human calls for him a third time, Loki prepares to rescue him for the last time and wash his hands of the matter. However, he had a realm to rule, and sometimes, there are occasions more important than saving an ant of a creature. When he finally gets around to answering the summons, he expected to be done in moments.</p><p>But, every now and then, time in the Nine Realms doesn't quite line up, and Loki finds he's over 250 years late. </p><p>It still counts.</p>
            </blockquote>





	We Could Tear the World Down

Machinery. 

That's what Loki senses first when the silence morphs to whirring and beeping. He takes a moment to savour the new sounds, tilting his head and hearing the way it dances around the room. Then he opens his eyes. 

He has his fist clenched tightly around Asgard. With Thor back on Earth, unaware of the way he wound his control over the throne and his identity solidly concealed by Odin's skin, there is really nothing to stop him from ruling as the rightful king. 

Why he is risking that rule by returning to Midgard... that's a more complicated matter than expansion and acquisition. Despite the rumours and the spiteful libel against him, Loki is a god of his word. Yes, there are always loopholes and tricks and ways of getting out of those promises, but he never outright ignores them. 

This time, he rather wants to keep his promise. It is a promise to someone who might choose to fight with Thor, if asked, if only for the morality of the point, or choose to fight with Loki, if only to cause widespread panic and mayhem. 

He saved Loki once. 

Loki promised to save him three times. 

He looks around the computer closet in disgust. If only he could have picked somewhere better to land. 

Loki nearly turns around and goes back the way he came. But all of that potential...

So he cloaks himself in invisibility, gripping his staff tightly in his hand as he waves it over the lights and watches them flicker to life. 

And he realises that this is not where he intends to be.

He remembers a dingy living space in a London flat. A pavement beneath a hospital. A Serbian military base. When he had followed the cry of his human soul, he had been taken to an Earth where the auras of billions of their small, extinguishable lives bombarded him from every side and angle. 

This place is unfamiliar. It seems hopelessly empty of life, compared to the biologically rich Midgard, and the technology is far beyond that he had witnessed upon Thor's favoured realm. He examines the colourful lights dotting the machines along the walls, running his fingers over them and feeling the energy hum and fluctuate beneath his touch. 

He reasons that he has merely miscalculated. This is a ship clearly from a more advanced planetary system than that of the galaxy that is Midgard's designation.

The Infinity Stone in his staff vibrates through its containing device as he grips it tighter, preparing to open the portal to London. He supposes he could start there, and follow the traces his human's soul left in his home to track him down. 

But he pauses. A familiar aura reaches out, spreading its fingers out in a pulse of anger. Loki latches on, wrapping his fingers in the strands of life. 

There is something horribly wrong with the soul. It cringes away from Loki's touch, despite the sickly sweet magic the trickster had used to coax it closer. He frowns, removing the spell, and the traces of life in his metaphorical hands stop struggling. 

It does not recognise his touch. That is what tells him that saving the life of his human this time really might be the end of his bargain. It is darker, more twisted, which he is rather pleased to see, but it stinks of desperation and sentiment. 

He resolves to fix that. 

The questions about where he is and why the human would be here at all ring clearly in his head, but they are questions to be asked after he finds him. 

So Loki goes searching. 

* * *

 It doesn't take very long. One moment, he is standing before a laughable excuse of a guarded door, and the next, he is in front of a glass partition, which contains a lean, muscular man in all black. He watches as the man paces back and forth, turning in sharp, angular movements with perfect military precision and something a little more menacing. 

Then he waves his hand, and the three men in red shirts slump into slumber. 

Immediately, the man in black is at the glass wall, shifting eyes settling into slits of quicksilver. His gaze skitters through Loki, searching for the assailant. Then he stops. His eyes drift back, slowly but surely, until they land barely an inch from where Loki stands. 

'Is it you?' he asks dully, but his hope and satisfaction are betrayed by the gleam in the newly blue irises directed so close to him. 'I smell you. I can feel your air. You charge it with energy unfamiliar to this setting.'

Loki smiles. 'Well done,' he commends, pulling his invisibility glamour from his body. 'You spotted me through a glass sheet and my strongest cloak. I am impressed, Mortal.'

Something resembling a smile twitches at the man's lips. Then it fades as fast as it came. 

'You're far too late,' he informs the trickster god. 'They've taken my people from me. Three centuries, Loki, since I called for you the first time and you did not respond.'

Loki steps closer to the glass partition. 

'I was taking my rightful place as king of Asgard,' he hisses. 'Time passes differently between the Nine Realms. Be grateful I deigned to answer you at all.'

In truth, Loki is caught off-guard. Three _hundred_ years? Had he accidentally moved himself in time, as well as space? His eyes slide down to the Infinity Stone, narrowed in thought at the unpredictability of the energy source. 

But that is a problem to solve at a later time.

The man rolls his eyes. Loki grips his staff tighter with anger, but then he catches sight of dried blood beneath the mortal's fingernails, and pink lines drawn over the sharp cheekbones of the nearly white face glaring at him through the glass. The marks fade as he watches. 

He places a hand on the glass, stroking it thoughtfully. 

'They once put me in a box like this,' he says, his voice coming out darker and smoother. 'They claimed it could contain a god. With their mortal hubris and their machines and their guns, they thought themselves equal. It seems they still do.'

His hand slides through the glass as if it were water, and he steps inside of the cell with the fluid grace of a heavenly being. The man regards him warily. 

'Mr. Holmes,' Loki says wryly. 'I believe I'm here to fulfil a promise.'

* * *

 Holmes scowls at him. 

'My name is Khan Noonien Singh, Liesmith,' he mutters darkly.

Loki smirks. 'Ah, but Mr. Holmes, we both know that's not quite true.'

Holmes stiffens. 

'I can sense it,' Loki continues, circling the prone figure just a hair shorter than himself. 'Your anger. Your resentment. Your thirst for vengeance. You've tried to wrap your compassion in swaddling strips and discard it to the wind.' He reaches forward, running a finger along an invisible string. 'I approve, Mortal. But Khan Noonien Singh is a mask, Mr. Holmes, and masks always crack and shatter in the end.' 

He thoughtfully stops in front of Holmes's face. 

'Where is your pet?' he asks, a gleam of mischief glowing in piercing blue eyes. 

Loki isn't expecting the blow from Holmes, but really, he should have seen it coming. 

What matters more was the force behind the punch that cracks against his skin and sends him flying.

He had been struck. By a mere mortal. And he had been thrown across the cell cleanly to the other side. 

He groans, rolling away from the wall until he can leap back to his feet. Holmes looks ready to punch him again, but the moment before he strikes, Loki presses the tip of his staff against the man's throat. 

'Careful, Mortal,' he warns, chest rising and falling with the effort of healing himself. 'You would not want me to... Slip my hand...'

He drags the tip down until it rests at Holmes's heart, a sinister smile stretched across his face. Holmes glared daggers back at him, but made no move to attack again. 

'You are no longer a mere ant, are you?' Loki asks wonderingly, closing his eyes and feeling Holmes's life force run straight through his staff and into his mind. 'Mortal, you are no more a true mortal than I a true Asgardian. Hiding in plain sight. How immoral of you. What sorcery have you been associating yourself with to kill your physical weaknesses?'

Holmes glowers at him and does not answer.

'Very well; keep your secrets for now,' Loki continues, lifting the weapon from his mortal's chest. 'But I will not let my previous question go unanswered. I merely ask because he was glued to your side the last time I gazed upon Midgard. He seems to have left you; however, I doubt it was willingly. There is far too much of a different grief surrounding you. But not dead. Not yet.'

Holmes sneers at him before his face settles into a mask of false sincerity. 'How is your brother?'

Loki scowls. 'Well played, Mr. Holmes. Well played. What trouble requires me to aid you this time?'

Holmes gestures to the cell with his eyes. Loki lifts his chin. 

'You would not waste your salvation on this, I would hope.'

Holmes gives a tight smile. 'When I called last, it was with the understanding that I would be executed on sight. The good Captain went against orders and decided, last minute, to take me back to Earth and put me on trial.'

Loki cocks his head slightly. 'I sensed that we were not upon the surface of Terra. An interstar vessel, I assume?'

'You would be correct,' Holmes affirms. 'It should be en route from the planet Qu'onoS to Earth, but in just a moment, I know that the Captain will come to me for the first time since my surrender because the warp core of this voyager is crippled. I had a plan, but you might have brought a better solution.'

Loki peers at him through narrowed eyes. 'I assume you know how to command a vessel of this type. Why not just dispose of the nuisances?'

Holmes's brow tightens into a bitter scowl. He abruptly turns away from Loki, if only to avoid his gaze, and Loki raises an eyebrow. 

'Ah. It is the man, isn't it?'

'Not just him,' Holmes mutters through gritted teeth. 'Him and 71 others.'

Loki blinks slowly at Holmes. Then his lips stretch into a crocodile smile, and he chuckles. 

'Ah, Mr. Holmes. Who knew you were capable of making friends?'

'Family,' Holmes corrects. 'My brother is included in their numbers, and my brothers- and sisters-in-arms. We are the last of our kind, Loki. 73 genetically altered humans, superior to them all in every way, and we are treated like animals. This is my last request of you, Trickster. My life no longer is of any consequence. I would give it willingly to save them.'

Loki sneers at him. 'You've grown sentimental, Mortal. I do not break my true promises, but I do not change them if they do not suit me.'

Holmes clenches his fists. 'Do you expect me to beg? Because I will not.'

'It's tempting,' Loki says wryly, enjoying the tension he has placed in his mortal's shoulders. 'I suppose I shall help you rescue your brothers-in-arms. However, I believe I will request one thing of you in return.'

Holmes glares warily at him. Loki steps back, letting the magic flow freely through his veins as he dons his armour and his headdress. Holmes raises an eyebrow at the gleaming golden horns, but says nothing at the godly power radiating and pulsing in front of him. 

'Kneel,' Loki commands. 'Kneel and swear fealty to me. You are aware of my respect for you, Mortal, and I would not be adverse to calling upon you if a circumstance merited it.'

Holmes looks as if he were going to protest with something about his freedom from religion and servitude, but he finally sighs and drops to one knee, a fist crossed over his chest. 

'I do swear my allegiance and service to thee, Loki Laufeyson,' he says in an almost mocking voice, 'King of Asgard, in return for the safety of my crew... And revenge upon the ones who enslaved us.'

Loki raises an eyebrow at the addition to his bargain. Then he grins again. 

'Vengeance. I approve. You might not be so pathetic after all, Mr. Holmes.'

He extends a hand towards his mortal. Holmes frowns at it until Loki sighs. 

'Do not make me change my mind.'

Holmes stares at it a second longer. Then he takes it in a firm, long-fingered grip, and Loki pulls him upright. He turns to face the glass, reaching forward with his free hand until it lays against the unyielding material. He feels Holmes's eyes on him as blue creeps down his fingers and along his arm and the temperature of the cell drops considerably. Holmes's breath clouds in the air. 

He doesn't even have to try. Frost spreads along the glass in intricate patterns until the whole sheet is frigid and brittle under his touch. 

'You may have your first test, Sherlock Holmes.'

Holmes glowers at him. Then he steps back, determination tightening the features of his face, before driving his shoulder into the glass. It shatters, raining down at their feet, as the technicians and guards began to stir from their slumber. 

Loki melts into invisibility as Holmes steps out of his cage. He catches the flash of white teeth before Holmes speaks. 

'Now... Shall we begin?'

**Author's Note:**

> Yes, I'm still writing Vengeance of a Misunderstood Villain, but I've been swamped with schoolwork and trying to finish a WWII-prompted cracky Sherlock thing for a Secret Santa Exchange (on which I have massive writer's block! Yikes!). That deadline is the 28th, but I promise to be back on track with Vengeance, at latest, by then.
> 
> In regards to this lovely plot bunny, if you want, I'll be continuing to write in this universe. Our favourite misunderstood villains have some bones to pick. Also, I was thinking you might like a bit on the first and second times Loki saved Sherlock. Drop me a comment if you're interested!


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